Saturday, June 8, 2013

Drive in Delirium Volumes 1 & 2

I've been watching Drive in Delirium. A stupendous and staggering collection of movie trailers from the B-Grade, Exploitation Era and beyond. Lurid and hilarious these trailers are the best.

There's truth in the old adage "They Don't Make Em Like They Used To"

They have everything. Sleazy sex, bad gore, shit acting, unfeasible plots. And the fonts, such beautiful wondrous titles and fonts. Just check out the trailer.

There's a plethora of sneaking under the censors going on here as well. With a lot of the women here, when savaged by the blood beast, or sub-humanoid or sea weed demon, you'd have a hard time telling if their screaming in terror or screaming in ecstasy and that in fact was how it was done back in the day. You weren't allowed to see a woman writhing in real pleasure on the screen but you can if we veil it under a flimsy veneer of terror and suspense.

Same goes for the Women in Prison Films which there are plenty of. Whether tied up and whipped by guards or tortured by Ilsa the Nazi Prison Warden they don't seem to give much protest instead seeming to moan in a state of pre-orgasmic fever.

The contrast can be jarring, but ultimately hilarious when put in context.

But it's not all Punanis in Prison, there are plenty of other old school gems buried throughout the full 24 hours over 8 discs.
Divided into sections by genre, style or just association
(Roger Corman's New World Pictures Studio gets it's own section called
New World Nuggets) the sections hold something for everybody.
If you want Blaxploitation there's Bad Muthas, for cannibal lovers there's We're Going To Eat You. For all your "When Animals Attack" needs there'sNature Gone Wild (including some of the classics of the genre- Jaws, Tentacles, Piranha, Grizzly etc) and Undead and Loving It- for lovers of Vampires and Zombies ,which includes this hilarious and very little seen clip of Romero's Day of the Dead

The sections often end with films from the late 80s and when they appear side by side it becomes unmistakably apparent the stylistic debt they owe to these buried treasures of the past.

This is a genre lovers answer to staying up and watching Rage on a saturday night. Clip after clip of Grindhouse campiness and frivolity where if the trailer your watching doesn't grab your fancy the next one might hold something for you and stop you from going to bed.